May 6: Konstantin Somov – artist of the Silver Age, singer of the "gallant landscape"
Konstantin Somov died on May 6, 1939, in Paris of heart disease. He was 69. One of the founders of the "World of Art" group and a master of portraiture and erotic graphics, he emigrated from Russia in 1923 and never returned.
St. Petersburg dandy
Somov was born in 1869 in St. Petersburg, the son of a Hermitage curator. The walls of his apartment were "thickly hung with paintings"—art had surrounded him since childhood. At 19, he graduated from the Karl May Gymnasium, a German school where he studied with Alexandre Benois, Walter Nouvel, and Dmitry Filosofov. Sergei Diaghilev later joined this circle; together they founded the society and magazine "World of Art."
Somov studied at the Academy of Arts under Ilya Repin. Already in his student years, he began painting 18th-century harlequins and ladies—images that would later bring him fame: "Harlequin in Love," "Harlequin and the Lady," and "Harlequin and Death." He exhibited in St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. He held his first solo exhibition—162 works—in St. Petersburg at the age of 34.
His contemporaries remembered him as a St. Petersburg dandy and a Parisian "Bohemian." The artist himself admitted: "I am, above all, madly in love with beauty and want to serve it."
The Book of the Marquise and erotic graphics
Somov illustrated publications by Pushkin, Gogol, Balmont, and Blok. In 1905, the Imperial Porcelain Factory cast the figurines "Lovers," "On the Stone," and "Lady with a Mask" based on his designs. In 1907, his "Book of the Marquise" was published—an edition of 800 copies featuring erotic illustrations, becoming his most famous graphic work. In 1918, the book was reprinted twice, each time with more explicit illustrations.
Some historians believe it was Somov who introduced erotica into Russian graphic art as an ironic genre. In his later years, he created a series of erotic works—"Sleeping Young Woman in the Park," "Lovers," "Bathers in the Sun," and "Nudes in a Mirror by the Window." Parisian collectors practically fought over them. His works also include nude male portraits: "Boxer" and "Naked Youth," painted two years before his death.
He illustrated the French novels "Manon Lescaut" and "Dangerous Liaisons," as well as the ancient Greek novel "Daphnis and Chloe." He spoke wryly of his work with nudes: "The work is very interesting for me, but difficult. You have to be good at drawing nudes, and I don't know how."
Emigration and recent years
After the revolution, Somov taught at the Petrograd State Free Art Studios. Soviet life was difficult: "I had to let go of the servants and squeeze myself into two rooms with all my belongings. They ended up looking like a furniture warehouse."
In 1923, he left Russia for America as a representative of the "Russian Exhibition" and never returned. He bought an apartment and a farm in France and lived with his lover, Methodius Lukyanov.
Among Somov's most famous paintings are "Russian Pastoral" (1922) and "Rainbow" (1897). In the early 2000s, they were sold at Christie's for $5 million and $7,5 million, respectively. The price for "Pastoral" then became a record for any painting by a Russian artist ever sold at auction.
